Alpro Pharmacy Boosts Productivity and Accuracy Amid Substantial Growth
As one of Malaysia's premier retail pharmacy chains, Alpro Pharmacy constantly evaluates its business practices, products and services to better serve its customers.
Zebra Success Story: Alpro Pharmacy
Overview: Retail Pharmacy Challenge
Improving customer service through streamlining inventory management while improving efficiencies to increase productivity.
Benefits / Outcomes
- 80% improvement in efficiency of order fulfillment
- Reduction of manual processes
- Five times more capacity for e-commerce order fulfillment without additional staff
- Greater visibility and accuracy of inventory movements
- Future-ready solution to support business growth
Customer
Alpro Pharmacy
Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
Partner
Industry
Retail Pharmacy
Solutions
About Alpro Pharmacy
With a mission to provide superb customer service, Alpro Pharmacy was established in 2002 and has become one of Malaysia’s premier retail pharmacy chains.
With more than 230 locations around the country, Alpro Pharmacy focuses on providing personalized care to its customers.
Alpro Pharmacy has experienced rapid, substantial growth, from the number of physical stores to e-commerce sales. With customer demands constantly changing, offering an omnichannel experience was crucial.
The Challenge
Alpro Pharmacy handles thousands of daily inventory movements between stores and directly to customers via online sales. Workers were relying on pen and paper processes to manage all these inventory movements. The increase in demand placed these manual processes under immense pressure.
Alpro Pharmacy was concerned that its existing inventory tracking process would be insufficient to support future business growth or continue to meet rising customer demands.
Alpro Pharmacy has experienced great growth and its systems needed to adapt to support omnichannel experiences that customers demand. Alpro Pharmacy now has a robust technology platform that has improved operations and supports both current and future needs.
The Solution
Alpro Pharmacy felt a digital transformation was needed to avoid its looming productivity issue caused by their manual processes.
The first stage of Alpro Pharmacy’s digital transformation was to implement a mobile computing solution within its supply chain. This would migrate front-line workers from pen and paper processes, to mobile computers that offered improved visibility of inventory movements and greater location and volume accuracy.
Alpro Pharmacy looked to Inchz IoT, a Zebra Business Partner, to offer expert technology advice and help in the supply and configuration of implemented hardware.
After evaluating its functionality, cost efficiency and the implementation of a successful proof of concept by Inchz IoT, Alpro Pharmacy decided to introduce Zebra TC21 mobile computers at its distribution centre and stores.
“Moving from pen and paper processes to the Zebra TC21 has seen the efficiency of our order fulfillments increase by at least 80%.”
Siew Piin Wong, Director Operations Management, Alpro Pharmacy
The TC21 comes with a compact, rugged, mobile form factor that offers a 5-inch touchscreen for ease of use by staff. Its cost efficiency also means the mobile devices can be extended across Alpro Pharmacy’s operations.
The devices are now used for all inventory management tasks, from receiving goods at the distribution centre to picking goods for store and online orders.
Further, the TC21 mobile devices are being used in store to coordinate inventory management tasks including receiving goods, transfer of stock between store, product lookup and stocktaking.
In fact, Alpro Pharmacy’s digital transformation went beyond the implementation of the TC21 devices to include the adoption of RFID technology.
The company wanted a solution to boost visibility and cross-check product crates as they were loaded onto delivery trucks and then verify their receipt at each store.
An RFID solution was ideal as a quick swipe of the crates quickly captures and reflects the necessary information.
Zebra RFD40 Sleds were used to RFIDenable the already deployed TC21 mobile devices. The RFD40 Sled attaches to the TC21 allowing front-line workers to easily transition between tasks resulting in an effective yet cost-effective solution.
The Zebra Difference: Outcome and Benefits
The digital transformation that Alpro Pharmacy has embarked on, starting with the Zebra TC21 and RFD40 Sleds, has already made a dramatic impact on the performance of its business.
Operational efficiency of order fulfillment in the e-commerce division has increased by 80%. E-commerce orders have increased from an average of 300 per day to over a thousand. With the adoption of mobile computing technology, the business has been able to meet the increase in orders without additional workers. Alpro Pharmacy estimates that its capacity has increased five-fold as a result of its digital transformation.
The RFID application has also improved tracking the accuracy of store order deliveries and ensuring the right inventory is delivered to the proper location. It is all about providing the best customer experience, and the investment in the Zebra TC21 mobile devices and RFD40 Sleds has Alpro Pharmacy ready to successfully achieve its mission and future growth.
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